More barbaric scenes coming out of the Netherlands involving the motorcycle police, this time the victim was a thirteen-year-old boy who risked being dragged along asphalt in a manner reminiscent of Texas in 1998 when members of a white terrorist group -- the KKK -- fatally chained a black man to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged him for kilometers, leaving behind nothing but broken pieces of what was once a human being.
In that case in Texas, the three individuals who tortured and murdered James Byrd Jr, 49 -- an innocent human walking to his mother's home -- were charged with capital crimes, and with civil rights violations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI.) Minorities being dragged by horses or vehicles to the point of death is nothing new in the history of race-based lynchings.
Thus, it is quite disturbing that the individuals who recorded the video, perhaps not being familiar with the history of minorities being dragged to their deaths at the hands of white vigilantes and agents of the law, were laughing. Throughout the disturbing clip, the boy is seen having difficulty maintaining his balance, nearly tripping and falling in front of the motorcycle. Had the boy tripped, it could have caused the officer to lose control of the motorcycle, thus resulting in an unnecessary, gory death.
The video of the 13-year-old -- Dutch privacy laws prohibit the names of minors from being publicly released -- was just recently posted on the facebook page of Mitch Henriquez, an Aruban man on vacation who was brutally choked to death in broad daylight.
That case resulted in nights of rioting just earlier this month, riots primarily concentrated in the minority neighborhood of The Hague. This incident is unlikely to result in immediate riots, but it's only feeding tension between the public and the Dutch police; tensions which are already running at levels expected in the rougher parts of Baltimore or Detroit, not in a developed economy in Northern Europe.
However, the officer in this incident is not being fired, he's merely being given a warning. Supporters
on Facebook such as Tom Lentelink have written: "very good on the part of the agent."
Eddy Erkelens wrote: "Harder! Harder!"
Jitze Van der Vinne added perhaps the most disturbing comment on facebook: "Gas would have been the correct thing!"
The boy is alleged to have provided a false name to the offending officer.
Net gebeurd in Almere. Is dit tegenwoordig hoe de politie met burgers omgaat?
Posted by Justice For Mitch Henriquez on Monday, July 13, 2015
